October 14, 2012

Scooped!

How could I not post this? The activities of our Martian geologist friend
continue to amaze, the latest being sand sampling. All images and captions are
courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS, and the NASA Curiosity website, which
describes the image above:

First Scoop by Curiosity, Sol 61 Views

This pairing illustrates the first time that NASA's Mars rover Curiosity
collected a scoop of soil on Mars. It combines two raw images taken on the
mission's 61st Martian day, or sol (Oct. 7, 2012) by the right camera of the
rover's two-camera Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument. The right Mastcam, or
Mastcam-100, has a telephoto, 100-millimeter-focal-length lens.

The image on
the left shows the ground at the location "Rocknest" after the scoop of sand and
dust had been removed. The image on the right shows the material inside the
rover's scoop, which is 1.8 inches (4.5 centimeters) wide, 2.8 inches (7
centimeters) long….

The team operating Curiosity decided on Oct. 9, 2012, to proceed with using
the rover's first scoop of Martian material. Plans for Sol 64 (Oct. 10) call for
shifting the scoopful of sand and dust into the mechanism for sieving and
portioning samples, and vibrating it vigorously to clean internal surfaces of
the mechanism. This first scooped sample, and the second one, will be discarded
after use, since they are only being used for the cleaning process. Subsequent
samples scooped from the same "Rocknest" area will be delivered to analytical
instruments.

Sand Filtered through Curiosity's Sieve

This image shows fine sand from Mars that was filtered by NASA's Curiosity
rover as part of its first "decontamination" exercise. These particles passed
through a sample-processing sieve that is porous only to particles less than
0.006 inches (150 microns) across. The view from the rover's Mast Camera looks
into the portion box and "throat" of the Collection and Handling for In-Situ
Martian Rock Analysis (CHIMRA) tool on the end of the rover's arm. The
decontamination exercise involved scooping some soil, shaking it thoroughly
inside the sample-processing chambers to scrub the internal surfaces, putting it
through a sieve, dividing it into the appropriate portions, then discarding the
sample. This image is downstream of the sieve. The portion box will meter out a
portion about the volume of half a baby aspirin so that the instruments
receiving the sample will not choke on a sample that is too big. The
decontamination procedure will be repeated three times. The rinse-and-discard
cycles serve a quality-assurance purpose similar to a common practice in
geochemical laboratory analysis on Earth. This image was taken by
Curiosity's right Mast Camera (Mastcam-100) on Oct. 10, 2012, the 64th sol, or
Martian day, of operations. Scientists white-balanced the color in this view to
show the Martian scene as it would appear under the lighting conditions we have
on Earth.

High-Resolution View of Cross-Section Through a Mars
Ripple

This image shows the wall of a scuffmark NASA's Curiosity made in a windblown
ripple of Martian sand with its wheel. The upper half of the image shows a small
portion of the side wall of the scuff and a little bit of the floor of the scuff
(bottom of this image). The prominent depression with raised rims at the bottom
center of the image was formed by one of the treads on Curiosity's front right
wheel. The largest grains in this image are about 0.04 to 0.08 inches (1 to
2 millimeters) in size. Those large grains were on top of the windblown ripple
and fell down to this location when the scuff was made. The bulk of the sand in
the ripple is smaller, in the range below 0.002 to 0.008 inches (50 to 200
microns). The full scuffmark is 20 inches (50 centimeters) wide, which is
the width of Curiosity's wheel. This image from the Mars Hand Lens Imager
(MAHLI) is the product of merging eight images acquired at eight slightly
different focus settings to bring out details on the wall, slopes, and floor of
the wheel scuff. The merge was performed onboard the MAHLI instrument to reduce
downlinked data volume. The image was acquired by MAHLI with the lens about
4.7 inches (12 centimeters) from the target. The pixel scale is about 0.002
inches (50 microns) per pixel. The image covers an area, roughly 3 by 2 inches
(8 by 6 centimeters). The image was obtained on Oct. 4, 2012, or sol 58, the
58th Martian day of operations on the surface.

'Rocknest' From Sol 52 Location

This patch of windblown sand and dust downhill from a cluster of dark rocks
is the "Rocknest" site, which has been selected as the likely location for first
use of the scoop on the arm of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity. This view is a
mosaic of images taken by the telephoto right-eye camera of the Mast Camera
(Mastcam) during the 52nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission (Sept. 28, 2012),
four sols before the rover arrived at Rocknest. The Rocknest patch is about 8
feet by 16 feet (1.5 meters by 5 meters). Scientists white-balanced the
color in this view to show the Martian scene as it would appear under the
lighting conditions we have on Earth, which helps in analyzing the terrain.

Once the first two scoops of sand have been used for the decontamination
process, the next one will be delivered to the array of analytical instruments:
I suspect that I am not alone in the eager anticipation of the results!

The picture quality from curisosity is amazing. I cant stop looking at the photos they are crystal clear. It is a shame that it's not prime time news at the moment. These things seem to die out after a while, but I'm always waiting for the next set of pics to come through. I hope that we find signs of lifein one form or another.